"..With Some Degree of Certainty"

The course provides an introduction to economics
through the primary method of economic reasoning:
the conceptual model. Models are deliberate
simplifications and abstractions used to develop
clarity and insight into real world processes.
This course introduces many of the most critical
insights from a spectrum of economic theory
(opportunity cost, human capital, comparative
advantage, effective demand, exploitation, etc.)
through direct engagement with economic models,
the issues they refer to, and the examination of
artworks that embody them. Emphasis is placed on
developing students' critical engagement with
models and statistical reasoning, encouraging the
creation of new models and quantitative engagement
with the contemporary world.


Economists - like artists - are obsessed with
representing the world and imagining its future.
Economists, compared with artists, employ a
limited range of expressive forms, chief among
them is the economic model: the deliberate
abstraction and simplification of the world for
clarity and insight.


For at least the last two hundred years modeling
has been a principal activity of the economist.
They make models of the economy as a whole, models
of the market, models of production, models
individual behavior. A casual observer might think
that the economist's mania is focused on
quantifying experience and finding numbers where
there are none, but the game goes deeper than
that. Quantification on its own merely describes
what already exists. The aim of the economist is
something grander: to visualize the future.


Of course, this is not generally what economists
admit to doing. The definition of economics is
dressed up with jargon like "the allocation of
scarce resources among diverse ends" or "the
science of choice", "the production and
distribution of the social surplus in society" or
"the study of the social provisioning process".
Economists talk about these things but their mark
of distinction is saying, with some degree of
certainly, what will happen next and what would
happen if some fact were different.


The representations economists use animate the way
they see the world, how they understand events,
and recommend action. The real task of the
economist is to represent the world as it is, as
it might be, and critically as one might like it
to be. Once an economic schema is selected some
aspects of experience stand out, while others are
cast aside. A world comes into focus. Approached
from this angle, and despite what people might
say, Artists are well suited to do the work of
economists.